The Adventures of Wilderness Family Gomez

Well...not quite...not all of us are equipped with the Wilderness or "roughing it" gene. But we had a wonderful time and made wonderful memories.
We spur of the moment decided to take a family camping trip this past weekend. After much deliberation and changing our minds, we decided on Mueller State Park in Divide, CO outside of Colorado Springs. We chose Mueller because a. it has showers so that Eric could shower before we drove home b. it was close to the Springs in case we did get rained out. We were prepared and knew the weather forecast, rain for all of Colorado, New Mexico and around here, so we thought it was worth trying it. We left here and drove up to Mueller very concerned that we would be turned away because we had no reservations and there were only 3 walk ups available. After a great trip up there, both girls did great, we pulled into the park and got a spot! We had a great location and had "views" of Pikes Peak, however the rain and clouds kept us from seeing much of a view. Eric was excited that there was a Wal-Mart only 19 miles away in Woodland Park. So, as soon as we unloaded the car and got camp set up, Eric went to Wal-Mart. Our camp stove wasn't working and we couldn't get a fire going because of the rain. Mali and I (and Eleri) sat in the tent and made PB&J sandwiches for dinner. When the rain would clear up, we ventured out of the tent and did some exploring. We made it through the night too. Mali kept coming out of her sleeping bag and Eric was cold, but Eleri and I were warm. The rain held off for a little while the next morning so I made breakfast. We ate in the rain underneath our canopy. After breakfast, we ventured out (in the car) to the visitor center and explored around there. They had several taxidermy animals and Mali's favorite questions where "Is it dead? Did they kill it?". Mali did a few chalk rubbings of the different animal prints. There was another break in the rain so Mali and Eric went on a hike around the little lake. It was an interactive hike for kids. There was pretend "scat" and prints that went along with the book she had received at the visitor center. Mali kept wanting to go on an "adventure" and so this was part of her adventure. We kept walking around when there was breaks in the rain. Mali found some deer "scat" and started to touch it, because at the interactive hike the scat was pretend and she touched it there. We laughed and explained to her that she couldn't touch the real scat. After lunch over the working cook stove, we went into Woodland Park to take Mali to the Dinosaur Museum. Her and Eric went in while I took a very short nap with Eleri and then fed Eleri. They both really enjoyed it and I think there were more "Is it dead?" questions. When we got back to our site we all piled into the tent with our books. Eric noticed that while we were gone the sleeping bags and pillows had been against the tent and were pretty wet. It was raining really really hard (see video) and there was now a "river" next to our site. (Side note: when we arrived at Mueller, Eric asked for a site by the river, well there are no rivers there, so we joked that he now had his river). We all pulled out our books and snacks and then Eric pointed out that my book pages were wet from the dripping rain. We waited and watched for a few minutes and noticed that the tent was leaking and there were small puddles at the corners of the tent. It had been raining non stop for the 24 hours we had been there. Then Eric heard thunder and told us all to get in the car. As we were sitting in the car, we talked through our options and finally decided to pack up. We had chosen this park because it was close to the Springs and we could go in and get a hotel. As we were packing up, I stopped a ranger that was patrolling and asked her if anyone wanted our firewood so that we wouldn't have to haul it back with us. She ended up taking it and told me that all she has for heat is a pipe stove in her home and was worried about where she was going to find dry wood. I said "well God provided some dry wood for you!" That made me cry and made me happy AND made me realize that we weren't wimping out, we were being used by God!:) So we drove into the Springs in the pouring rain. With the help of Shaina, we got a nice hotel. It was still raining up in the mountains and we kept checking the radar to make ourselves feel better. However, the hotel was pure luxury after camping. We took HOT showers, which was an issue. Mali did slip and hit her head in the shower, but recovered. Then we were off to eat at Fargo's pizza. We had fun, but I'm not sure Mali enjoyed as much as we thought she would. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Olympic Training center. Some how we always arrive there after hours. But as we pulled in, the security guard told us that Michael Phelp's had just been spotted swimming. We missed him though, if he was there. We took a few pictures and then went back to the hotel were we relaxed and Mali got to swim in the indoor pool. It was a very restful night. In the morning, we met Shaina for the complimentary hot breakfast. She lives only 2 blocks from the hotel, so we enjoyed conversation, catching up and coffee. She was great with Mali, as always, and I'm so appreciative of her tolerance of Mali. We took our time checking out and then spent the morning at Garden of the Gods. We walked around and took pictures. Surprisingly, it started to rain, so we started walking back to our car. On the way back, we saw a family with a huge log on top of their stroller...taking it out of the park. We laughed about this and wished Brandon was there to witness the craziness! As we headed out, Eric made Texas proud and drove the wrong way through the Garden, but quickly corrected himself!:) We stopped for lunch at Qdobas (burritos, like Chipotles, and they have great Queso and Queso burritos. Thanks Laura for introducing us to it, we LOVE it!), I fed Eleri and then we headed home. It was a really really fun and great weekend. We look forward to more camping trips and trips to Mueller State Park. Although, Eric is looking into a pop-up-camper!

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